Once upon a time, you actually had to type your résumé on real paper. If you wanted it to look special, you needed to find a letterpress shop to rework it into something special. But now we have a world of typographic options at our fingertips… and yet, when it comes time to apply for a job, so many of us still choose good ol’ Times New Roman. [More]

There are plenty of ways to copy/paste resumes and cover letters posted online for the cost of zero dollars. So if you’re going to pay a service to help you write your cover letter, you’d at least hope to get something original. And when you find out they have lied to you, you’d probably expect them to own up to their thievery. [More]

Almost everyone has a horror story about a long, unreasonable, inappropriate, or otherwise terrible job interview process that they’ve been through. The Internet learned this week that applicants for jobs with the not-for-profit Operation Smile go through an all-day marathon of interviews that culminates in planning and cooking a an evening of dinner, drinks, and entertainment for forty people. [More]

It’s one thing (though still obnoxious) to be a brash, backstabbing alpha male when you’re out on the town with business associates. It’s another for a job applicant to be so dimwitted as to put that same arrogant attitude into an e-mail and assume it’s not going to be forwarded around, and probably end up on the smartphone screen of the very people you’re insulting. [More]

Job-hunters spend hours, if not days or weeks, honing their resumes to a fine point. They’re hopeful that their tweaks and optimizations will do just enough to grab the attention of job recruiters and managers. But much of that work may be in vain, because resumes often only get a few seconds to do their jobs before they’re dismissed.

Employers don’t care for long, unexplained gaps on your resume. If you’ve dropped out of the work force, it’s important to try to fill your life with things that can become bullet points on your promotional one-sheet.

When you’re seeking new employment, nothing comes easy. You’re facing a sea of hungry applicants, gunning for the attention of distracted managers and facing failure on a daily basis. The process can be so frustrating that it may hardly seem worth it, but can land you a dream job if you keep your eyes open, your spirits up and manage to land a break.

Anyone who has applied for a job at a large company — especially one that doesn’t accept actual resumes but instead requires you to fill out a series of online forms — probably knows that their CV is being scanned, and maybe thrown in the trash, by some automated system meant to weed out those who obviously don’t fit the criteria. But there’s a chance you do fit the bill; you’re just not using the write words to describe your skills and experience.

Because of the difficult job market, many people who never expected to be scanning job ads and sending out resumes are doing exactly that. In order to streamline your search and spend as much time as possible chasing promising leads, you’ll need to be smart about the way you conduct your search.

Looking for a new job in the current climate is difficult enough. And most currently employed job-hunters can’t risk losing have the added onus of worrying about losing that gig if their bosses find out.

The best job-hunting advice is to have powerful friends who owe you favors, but the second-best may be to have a resume that doesn’t bury your chances at employment. While an excellent resume may not be able to land you a job, an awful one sure can take you out of the running.

Molly writes that her brother has been looking for employment for a long time, and finally received a tentative job offer for a job in a warehouse. It’s underemployment, but it’s employment, right? The problem is that the agency doing the hiring seems kind of shady to Molly. They want to verify that her brother is a U.S. citizen by having him use a “free” credit score service, and e-mailing them the score. Molly’s right: it’s a scam.

The Federal Trade Commission has a website at www.ftc.gov/jobscams with information on the types of scams you’re likely to find in Help Wanted listings. They’ve also put together a short video (below) that describes how scammers try to charge job hunters fees to pay for job certification, or to provide access to executive-level interviews, or to acquire study materials that are supposedly crucial to passing a hiring exam. It’s a good refresher course in what to look out for when you’re answering ads.

The next time you don’t get that job because someone in HR saw your Facebook pics of you at the weekend cosplay orgy, you’ll have only yourself to blame. (But not for the orgy, which sounded like a really good idea at the time.) Starting soonish–it’s being rolled out now–you’ll have the ability to set privacy levels for each status update. That sound you hear is the collective wail of moms everywhere who are about to be shut out of the more salacious aspects of their kids’ lives.

Sure, we all know that it’s as disastrous to arrive late for a job interview as it is to submit your resume written in crayon. But have you ever thought about what happens if you arrive early? According to resume consultant Adam Sterling, arriving early disrupts your interviewers’ schedules and creates tension.

Today only, FedEx Office (formerly FedEx Kinko’s) will print up to 25 copies of your resume for free. You can submit as a digital file or in person, but must pick up the resumes at a FedEx Office location. [FedEx] (Thanks to ingaraundquist !)